Sometimes you laugh at yourself when you remember those recent moments when you insistently tell your friend “OMG, if they give you estrogen TAKE THE ESTROGEN, JUST TAKE IT…..!!!!”
A friend mentioned possible premenopause types of symptoms and doctors and I just panicked at her life with less estrogen. Until I suddenly felt like an estrogen pusher, heeeyyyyy lady, want some hormones? $10 and I will hook you right up… The last thing I should be doing is talking women into taking estrogen since it is tied to breast cancer, but my suspicion is because it can fuel the growth of cells that may have otherwise died because you threw in extra food in your system.
I guess it is one of those things you don’t realize how much you LOVE it until you live without it. Estrogen is as my mom calls “the fountain of youth.” Tamoxifen blocks estrogen receptors in your body, making them think they have estrogen, when they don’t. Thus all of the parts of your body that use estrogen, don’t get to use estrogen at the rate that they may have grown accustomed.
I try to make it a point not to spend hours bemoaning the side effects of Tamoxifen. They can be challenging at times, and the longer I am on it, the more challenging they seem to be. To me there had always been an “end point” in sight and I have been just counting down the days. There are worse things in life, it is all about perspective, sometimes I just need a little more perspective. 🙂
We had started me on a small amount of a locally administered estrogen at one point, because my doctors felt strongly that the amount was likely to not travel through my bloodstream and become systemic (estrogen throughout your system is what feeds estrogen positive cancer). I had left this out of my blog because I hated to admit that an estrogen positive breast cancer patient had taken a teensy weensy bit of estrogen. It was soooooo wonderful to have, but unfortunately the time period I was taking it was when the lung nodules opted to go for a growth spurt, are they related? most likely not, but it can still freak a woman out. My doctor didn’t take me off of it at the time, I did, because it scared me (and I had just barely started it, but starting it involved a higher dose). When I stopped the lung nodules didn’t grow. Which messes with me just a little bit. So I just go ahead and convince my friends to take it. Maybe so I can live through them vicariously!
Estrogen. I miss you. XOXO.
